Speakers and Workshops

The Earth & Spirit Center offers a variety of lectures and workshops for churches, church groups, schools, and religious organizations. Various programs suitable to the needs of the congregation or organization can be scheduled.

Possible programs include:

Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream

Awakening the Dreamer is a symposium which explores the possibilities for bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the Earth. Through dynamic group interactions, leading edge information, and inspiring multimedia presentations, participants learn to reconnect with their deep concern for our world and are empowered to make a difference. This symposium explores the current state of our planet from a faith perspective and connects participants with a powerful spiritual movement to shape a hopeful future. It explores four basic questions:

Where Are We? – examining the present condition of God’s creation, social justice within the human family and spiritual fulfillment within the human heart

How did We Get Here? – tracing the root causes that have brought us into our current imbalance

What’s Possible for the Future? – discovering new ways of relating with each other and with the natural world in which we live

Where Do We Go from Here? – considering our personal options and steps we can take to ensure a hopeful future

Time: 3-5 hours.

Recovering a Sacred Balance

We live in a vibrant world of deep interconnections. Yet we can easily find ourselves weary and estranged from the world in which we live. Often, it seems, we are too busy to enjoy the gift of life and the simple abundance of the Earth. We have created a dangerous imbalance. This workshop explores how we arrived at this point in our human journey, how a modern mindset has created a sense of alienation, and how we can find a hopeful future. How can we activate our Christian faith to bring forth a human presence on this planet that is socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling. It is about recovering a sacred balance.Time: 1-2 hour presentation or all-day workshop.

Embracing the Life We Are Given

Many people now recognize that caring for the Earth is of vital importance for survival and the wellbeing of our children. This lecture explores how we can make a transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would celebrate the sacredness of all creation. Time: 1-2 hour presentation.

Living in Harmony with Creation

The primary cause of climate change is carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels which power our homes, transportation, and the factories that produce the goods we consume. Large-scale solutions are necessary by government, industry, and businesses, each of which have crucial roles to play. But there are also dozens of things each one of us can do to begin making a difference; many of them very easy. Learn to start taking the best positive actions, so that our children and grandchildren will inherit a more sustainable world. Time: 1 hour presentation or 2-4 hour workshop.

Intentional Living

Voluntary Simplicity means living intentionally, or living a meaningful life to the fullest. It means choosing the activities that will be rewarding in our lives instead of doing what we think “the world” expects us to do. It involves the resources we wish to use instead of being pushed and pulled by society to use more resources than we need. Practitioners of voluntary simplicity may choose to be as busy and as focused as they want – to achieve the goals they set for themselves. Time: 1 hour presentation or 2-4 hour workshop with group activities.